Promotion
by Gorgoninator
Summary: Some ceremonies are large, grandiose, overdone to draw in the public. Coronations. Holidays. Some ceremonies are private. Anniversaries spent alone with a loved one. Time honored family traditions. Some ceremonies are both. News of Brigadier General Hughes's promotion spreads quickly, but dead men can't stand at attention to receive their new ranks.


"He would've wanted it to be you."

Roy considered Grumman's words, eyes fixed on his desk. His hand skimmed an impressive stack of papers. The repetitive motion was tiring to look at, swift fingers moving languidly over the sensitive documents. After a moment his movement stalled, dark eyebrows knitted together as he finally seemed to realize exactly who was standing in his office. He sighed briefly before snapping his head up. There was a smile on his face but something about it was off. It was too big. There were too many teeth.

"You're right General. That man always did enjoy finding ways to tear me from my desk. Especially when I was busy." The joviality in Roy's voice matched the snarl on his face—an unsettling imitation that fell somewhere in the uncanny valley between sincerity and threat. The General didn't respond right away and Roy's expression began to fall. His smile remained rigidly in place—but his cheeks, and the corners of his eyes: they were melting.

"We should do it now." Grumman made eye contact, face strict despite the casual notes in his voice. "The service is tomorrow, and he should be in order for his family."

Roy nodded, worried that if he moved his mouth to speak it would fall apart. He wondered briefly if someone would be taking pictures at the funeral, and couldn't decide whether Hughes would hate it or insist on it. He mulled on the thought and stood to follow. Greasy hair fell into his face and he knew he looked a mess. If one of his subordinates showed up to a promotion ceremony like this he would flay them alive. That's what he wanted—To flay someone alive. His fingers twitched. He continued down the hallways, boots creating familiar and soothing sounds on the hard floors. The noise—heavy and predictable—reverberated relentlessly in his head; his footsteps were always louder when there was nobody else around, when it was dark.

They were outside another building now, still on base but no longer near his office. The military had facilities for this, of course, but Roy had never seen it so clean. It looked like any other building, a far cry from the rushed facilities he'd dealt with during the war. It was better when it was messy, he thought. Death was messy. Casualties shouldn't be pushed off and sterilized so the world could pretend they didn't exist. He didn't deserve that kind of peace, and the military brass sure as hell didn't deserve it either. He saw Grumman give him a nervous look and realized his face had contorted with his thoughts. He fought to relax, to let his face go slack, but he couldn't seem to stop the building tension.

He couldn't seem to stop anything.

Instead of relaxing he forced a smile on top of everything else, fighting tension with tension. Fighting fire with fire. He didn't wait to follow, stepping purposefully into the building and heading towards the basement. He knew that was where they were keeping him until tomorrow. It didn't make sense, but something in Roy's brain told him that if he did this fast enough he wouldn't have to see the body at all. The whole twisted event could be over before his brain could process it, and he could pretend he'd been sitting at his desk the whole time. He could live forever with the hellhole feeling created by the subliminal image of his dead friend, but at least he wouldn't have to see it.

He made it to the stairs. His blood rammed against his neck rhythmically, reminding him that he was alive. He'd had a conversation with Maes once, during the war, about this very phenomenon. Maes had said that it was an adaption that allowed soldiers to focus on their bodies, to be more effective. Riza had agreed, but Roy thought that asking her in the first place was cheating. Snipers needed to hear their heartbeats to do their jobs. Roy had said that it was so they didn't forget. So they didn't just lie down on the battlefield and finish dying. The heartbeat made soldiers remember their connection to Earth—to life. It reminded them that they had an evolutionary obligation to continue onward.

He could hear it now, pounding against him like a headache. This must be proof he was right. What else could it be telling him but "Keep going you ass. You're still alive."

He paused for a moment at the door and heard a few rushed steps behind him as the General caught up. His hand was on the handle but he had to deliberately tell it to move. His unconscious mind was unsure, it was waiting for him to call the shots. He turned the handle and pushed forward deliberately, walking into the room.

He didn't look dead.

It wasn't that Roy hadn't seen death before, it was that Maes just didn't look dead. He'd bled to death, Roy knew that, but they'd changed his uniform since then. There was no blood that he could see. No blood, no missing limbs, no burns. He had been healthy when he passed, so there were no signs of disease or famine. He was a little pale, and his hair wasn't quite messy enough—someone else had done it for him—but other than that he looked the same. Somebody cleared their throat and Roy tore his eyes away.

"We've been waiting for you sir." said the young man in the corner. He must've been one of Hughe's coworkers in Investigations. The poor boy's eyes were bloodshot. Perhaps he'd been crying, perhaps he'd just been up all night taking care of paperwork. Roy wouldn't be surprised with either answer.

"We all thought he'd want you to be the one to do it sir." the girl next to him spoke up. He could see the tear tracks on her face. Roy had met her before but he couldn't remember her name. Hughes would have known it. He knew everyone's names, even if they weren't on his staff. "He talked about you a lot." She looked like she was going to say something else, but fell silent instead.

"Not to mention how often he called you during work hours." The boy continued. "We could always hear him babbling to you from his office. There was even an office pool, on how long it would take you to hang up on him. Anything under twenty seconds went to me." his eyes moved up to meet Roy's. "I only won twice."

Roy wanted to lie down, he wanted to be alone. The girl started talking again, working past the tears that were crawling down her face.

"Someone suggested it be his family, but it's actually against regulations. It has to be another military officer." She paused to wipe off a tear that had fallen onto her lips. "We looked at the records, but they only show the date of advancement. It doesn't say anything about who he chose to pin the new insignias."

"It was me last time too." Roy gave up on trying to keep his face under control as he spoke. He focused instead on forcing some semblance of power to remain in his voice, willing it not to wobble or disappear. "It's been me every time since Ishval." The two young officers were silent, looking at him curiously, nervously. "He's done it for me as well." Roy felt a different pressure building, his muscles wanted to shake. His sinuses were full in a way that had nothing to do with allergies. He felt the panicked hurry from before try to reenter him, but it was crushed by fatigue and the other vacuous emotions that accompanied it. He couldn't feel his arms.

"Sir?"

Roy turned to the side, startled. He hadn't noticed the girl moving across the room to stand beside him. She was looking at him expectantly; a small, encouraging smile was at odds with the tears on her face. His brows furrowed, confusion littered across his features. It took an embarrassing amount of time for him to realize she was holding her arm out. Two separate brass ovals were sitting in her palm, and he stared at them for a moment before reaching hesitantly to take them. He imagined the metal would feel cool, if he wasn't wearing his gloves. Or maybe it would be warm, since the girl had been holding them. He could feel the edges through the fabric, sharp despite the rounded appearance. He had a sudden urge to squeeze. To let the fine brim dig through the cloth, into his skin. To draw blood. He turned away from the girl, fighting the pressure in his eyes again.

He was looking right at Hughes now, closer than before. The uniform he was wearing was immaculately pressed, but it definitely belonged to him. Roy wondered if Gracia had brought it by, or if some unlucky soldiers had been to his house to collect it. He imagined having to go retrieve dress clothes from the Hughes household and suddenly the bloodshot eyes on the otherwise collected young soldier made sense. Roy felt another pang of guilt run through him. He should've been the one to go.

The insignia on Hughes's shoulder was wrong now. Roy palmed the ovals and reached down to his friend. He didn't actually have to touch him, and the uniform and the gloves created enough of a barrier that Roy could pretend there was still warmth underneath the seams. He unpinned the rank on the right shoulder, eyes never leaving his hands. He stalled for a moment as he finished, wondering if he should reach over the bulk of Maes's body to the left shoulder. Deciding against it, he walked all the way around the table to unpin that rank as well before pulling out the ovals.

"You die and they promote you to Brigadier General." Roy whispered, unlatching the pin on the first oval and reaching down to stab it through the epaulet. He felt the tears coming, but at least they were silent. He kept his face angled towards Hughes. He didn't want to cry in front of the other soldiers in the room, but it was okay if it was just Maes. "If you made Brigadier General dead, imagine what you could've done alive." A droplet fell off his chin, creating a small indigo dot on the blue fabric, right at the divot under Hughe's shoulder. Roy returned to the other side of the table, limbs moving heavily. He readied the pin as he walked, and attached the second oval as quickly as he could. He thanked the universe that Hughes had only earned the one. He didn't know if he could handle having to pin on more.

He finished securing the insignia but didn't move back. He couldn't manage any coherent thoughts, but instead felt something inside him wiping his mind blank and urging him to stay where he was. His limbs were locked up and he could feel his jaw moving without his permission, tears continuing to slide down his cheeks. He wanted desperately for something to happen, but nobody moved or said anything. Nobody gave him respite, they only looked on in awkward fascination as he tried not to fall apart.

The feeling passed as suddenly as it had arrived, and Roy took two steps back as soon as he had control of his limbs again. He moved into the final step of the promotion, bringing his feet together and raising his right hand into a salute, only to realize that there was no way for Hughe's to release him. Just his luck, he was going to be standing at attention in this sterile basement forever, until he died of hunger or fatigue. The first time he'd been part of a ceremony like this, Hughes had kept him at attention for a solid minute—devilish smile on his face. Roy could almost imagine the corners of Hughes's lips twitching up; the way he would shrug his shoulders as if he'd done nothing wrong. But reality set in quickly. Corpses don't smile.

"At ease, Mustang." Grumman had a curious expression on his face. Roy was too tired to figure out exactly what it meant.

Roy hesitated for a moment before breaking the salute. He turned quickly on his heel and left the room, taking the glove off his right hand as he did so. He reached two fingers up to the pulse point on his neck, feeling the blood rush from his heart to his brain, keeping his body alive, allowing his digits to move freely.

He had to remember to keep going.


End file.
